How To Video: Subscribing to podcasts in iTunes

How To Video: Subscribing to podcasts in iTunes

3:09 /
May 5, 2010

Learn how to download thousands of free video and audio podcasts to your iPod using Apple's iTunes software.

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>>Donald Bell: Hey I'm Donald Bell and today I'm going to show you how to get started with podcasts in iTunes.
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>> Podcasts are free audio and video broadcasts that you can download from the internet and enjoy on your computer or your MP3 player. There are thousands of podcasts out there that you can download ranging from world news to fly fishing tutorials. CNET alone publishes over 20 podcasts covering every facet of technology we write about. If your new to the idea of podcasts or never quite got the hang of it there's never been a better time to get started and one of the best tools for podcasts is something you probably already familiar with; Apple's iTunes software. If you click on the podcast tab in your iTunes library pane you'll see your personal podcast subscription list. If you're new to this stuff the list is probably empty but you can change that by clicking on the podcast directory link at the bottom of the window. The link takes you to the podcast section of the iTunes store where you can browse for podcasts by name, category, publisher, topic, or popularity or sort out video podcasts from audio podcasts. No matter what your interest there really is something for everyone. Plus all the podcasts and iTunes are free of charge so there's no harm in trying some out and deleting them later. Once you've landed on a specific page for a podcast you'll see a list of recent episodes that you can download individually but the real magic of podcasts is the subscribe button right here. By subscribing to a podcast your giving iTunes instructions to look for new episodes of this podcast every time you start iTunes and to download them to your computer automatically. Once you've subscribed to a few podcasts you'll see them downloading in your personal podcast library. By default iTunes will download only the most recent episode of each podcast. But you can tweak each podcast subscription instructions by pressing the settings button on the bottom of the window. Other useful buttons here are the unsubscribe button for canceling a particular podcast subscription and an info button that offers a little summary of what each episode is about. Now watching or listening to your favorite podcast in iTunes is great but they really come in handy when you're on the go, waiting in some long line, or trying to pass the time during a commute. To get your podcast onto your iPod connect it to your computer and in the iPod summary window you should see a tab for podcasts. You can select individual podcasts to sync from your collection or you can just transfer them all. You can also tweak how many episodes of each podcast get transferred at a time. The brilliant part of all of this is that iTunes is smart enough to automatically delete old podcasts from your iPod and replace them with new ones so that you never need to worry about your iPod becoming bloated with old episodes. [Background music] After you hit the apply button your podcast will sync over and you can play episodes right from the podcasts section of your iPod. So that's how to work with podcasts in iTunes to browsing this awesome selection of technology podcasts head over to podcast.cnet.com.
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